Code Name Jupiter SOG-X.4

Brass calls last mission a failed success. The rescue has been kept from the press, except for reporting that a certain CEO was “lost while on safari “. Vivisecting CEOs isn’t ready for 6PM coverage yet. The plus was uncovering that Dr Frankenstein has some how survived and flourished since WW2.

Here’s the brief for your next one. You’ve seen the news of monoliths popping up around the world. We’ve traced these back to the Commies. They’re using these as a distraction while he “real” monolith is brought online. Once operable, it will provide a comm link to one of their black Ops satellites. Ultimate purpose unknown.

Grab the site, collect intel, then blow the station. Wheels up in 30.

The SOG team dropped into the deep jungles of the Amazon, where the Commies had been working, under the guise construction engineers, with locals to erect several hi-tech power stations.

The group pushed into the High Grasses bordering a plateau. A Hired Muscle goon stepped out of the jungle behind the team and shouted an alarm. The team found themselves in the mist of a drug lords hidden crop field, defended by an army ruffians.

The team had faced tougher and quickly began sweeping the enemy from the field. Sgt Burton, Cpl Beck and Cpl Abadi, as the bounding element, leapt forward. 

Cpl Beck kept charging deeper into the jungle, pitching a grenade at a group of smugglers. Deep jungle protected most from the blast.

The others pressed forward in the confusion.

AMBUSH! 
The drug runners had practice defending their realm from Federales! The SOF team was caught in an ambush. Vega caught a burst of fire and went down in a heap. Cpl Duchetta also caught a slug but kept moving.

Cpl Beck, showing why baseball is not big in Europe, pitched his last grenade ineffectively at a Toyota packed with Hostiles.

Sgt Burton took half the squad forward and established a Kill Zone of his own. Time for some playback.

After a ferocious firefight the team turned the tide and consolidated. Sgt Larson caught minor wound stopping a flanking move. 

Close to the Objective, the team prepared to entire the ravine leading to the monolith.
Where are all these Hostiles coming from? They are sporting serious firepower.

Larson and Burton heaved grenades at the larger concentrations. Shattering Squad and Truck before it’s cargo of Hostiles could off load. Time to descend the ravine and secure the monolith.

 

WTF! What the hell were the Commies working on? An army of apes launched a shock and awe attack.

Fortunately, having already dealt with many sorts of weirdness, the SOG force recovered quickly and began emptying their mags into the new threat. Grenades seemed ineffective against these strange foes. 

Time and ammo were running short. Time to focus and make every shot count.

Bad luck, an ape leaps out of the bush....

Cpl Beck suffers a severe clawing before the ape is dispatched. The team scatters the remaining Hostiles and secures the site long enough to call in a chopper. Time for some R&R....

Aftermath 
Another fun game. We won on the last clock turn! The current news stories gave us a tailor made plot line. Our only miss was not working in some “planet of the apes” type Hostiles. Also, Pretty sure it’s time to recruit a PS with the Medic skill! The 203 is a sweet weapon. And one of “us” need new dice for those grenade rolls. Saturday’s dice were HORRIBLE!

WarFighter has proved a great game for us to play over Zoom during the pandemic of 2020. The Three of us each work 2 soldiers. We have one camera on the PS “hands”, and another one on the player mat. Play goes smoothly and has provided us with tons of fun. 

Let us know if you have comments or thoughts on the SOG-X theme. 

Special thanks to David for his support and quick responses to questions that have come up.

Return of an old Nemesis

Never mind what you saw in North Korea. They’ve dropped a complete cone of silence over that country.

We have a bigger concern. A congressional delegation, along with some corporate types were Meeting in Southwestern Poland. As they loaded into their limos, a hit squad took out security and then drove off into the Eastern Europe countryside.

Satellite intel traced the convoy to an enclave, which for some unknown reason the soviets never brought under their control. The surrounding area has always shown above average military activity.

Make a low level drop, reacquire that delegation, then find a way to get everyone home. Take off in thirty.
The squad

They reviewed the mission brief while inbound. The jump into an area without first hand knowledge made for a dicey jump. Result - what can at best be called a Poor Landing (to hit the zone each PS had to dump 2RP of gear (knives, pistols, grenades, who needs ‘em?))

The brief had one thing right, the enclave had a cordon of baddies guarding it.

Once again, the surprise of an airborne assault paid off. Heavy fire from our assault weapons cleared the Checkpoint. (Wow - entry cost of 3 plus 2 for each hostile). This allowed Sgt Burton and Cpl Tate to push up and secure the area.

The firefight alerted other forces in the area, who then blocked our road in. Cpl Sharp pitched a M67 into the middle of the enemy as Tate pinned down the rest.

The entire countryside was lousy with Baddies. As soon as the roadblock was overcome, the squad was hit by another patrol. The squad was burning thru ammo and luck. Sgt Burton signaled Pvt Reeves to trigger the call sign for a supply drop. The team was too stretched and needed to all press forward at the same time. (Entry costs were running high and required lots of cards and draw actions, concurrent with clearing out hostiles).

Luck ran out for Pvt Reeves, his attention to the signal burst distracted him from staying low, and bursts from many hostiles ended his career as an airborne ranger.
Adding to the bad news, the damn drop landed behind the squad (blue markers of a 6RP drop).

The team reorganized and Sgt Larson agreed to scramble back and recover the supply drop.

WTF! As the squad prepared to breach the isolated factory where the captives were being held, a mass of antique warriors assaulted the squad! Time warp!

It was like a 75 year stockpile of WW2 dropped on the team. Though these hostiles were even more strange. Fearless. Many looking like death warmed over. Romero would say zombies!

And in the back, an old geezer looked up from vivisecting one of the now “former” CEO types from the delegation. The team had seen this guy before. Division history contained rumors of combating a Dr Frankenstein back in ‘44. Could this be him?

Cpl Tate caught a burst from Hitler’s buzz saw and went down in a heap. Sarge spotted a Commie Hind outback. He’d flown one before, and an extraction plan formed.

The team nailed every enemy with the range to bring the Hind under fire. Two members took potshots at the Doktor but failed (high cover and -2 to hit, one tough cookie).

Sgt Beck, on loan from the FDR, yelled to the delegation “every one, get to der Chopper!”.
Followed by Larson’s cry of “if you want to live, come with me!”

Aftermath 
The team made it to the objective with one turn to spare. Plenty of time to load a bunch of suits into the helicopter.

We tried a homebrew this week. It was time to see Dr Frankenstein again. And I sort of enjoy the original zombie pack and wanted to see those guys again. Dr Frankenstein and zombie encounters in WW2 are part of the lore and history that caused the creation on SOG X.
It worked out well, as many/most are range 0, allowing our troopers to juke them in many cases. 

Also, I preplanned the locations, still had to play a location card in order to flip it. And the other two players did not know what the locations were until they were flipped. Thematically I figured in several checkpoints and roadblocks, to hem in the Doktor’s forces. After the abandoned factory I had the MI-24 as the objective card, setting up the escape route.

Fudged, and gave Beck a pistol. Hope to figure out a way to (like in PMC) take a trooper from lower entry cost level to PS status. Ultimately we want a multinational Phoenix Force type squad. 

Airborne is still a fun setting. Wishing there was another batch of landing zone and behind enemy lines cards. Mainly to keep the missions fresh.

Warfighter Drop Zone North Korea

We’ve intercepted heavy radio traffic coming over the NK’s military net. Much of it seeming to be frantic calls for support, oddly enough being sent in the clear. Satellite intel shows scenes of rioting and mass murdering occurring in every major city we monitor. The NK military is moving mechanized units into the cities and engaging the mobs.

Their Chinese buddies seem to fear the mobs of NKs gathering towards their shared border. Something about those herds has caused the Chinese to drop every bridge joining the two countries. They have also tripled the number of river boats patrolling those areas. They know something we don’t!

Given our suspicions concerning the Covid-19 outbreak, our white coat people fear some biological experiment might have blown up in their face.

The president has authorized your team to drop into NK and demolish the People’s Highway Bridge before the rabble crosses. The fly in your whiskey is that our SK “partners” want to goodwill any and all support requested by their estranged brothers. So, you must make a covert insertion and drop the bridge from the NK side, preferably without tipping off the SKs.

Here’s your brief:

Sack up, you liftoff in 30.

The team drops into the middle of some NKs. Fortunately we hit them before their shock wore off.

The Bridge approach was well defended. We ran into some tough terrain (time marker advanced 2 spaces).

The enemy had the benefit of knowing the countryside, and made taking them out more difficult than African warlord mission troops had been. The team slowed their advance in order to reduce the engaged forces.

The squad expended the few grenades they had, eliminating many of the enemy. The team then spread out to cover the Supply Drop zone. 

Dammit. The drop overshot even our forward position. It had the equipment needed for dropping the bridge. Time to hump it and reconsolidate the squad. Team Lead sprinted forward, having seen the chute hung on the bridge itself.

The bridge was well defended. The squad laid down suppressing fire, allowing a snapshot at the officer as he sprinted towards his commo Jeep.

With the M3 Gustav retrieved, Lead dropped back and let loose at the main trestle. The NKs stared in shock as the bridge fell into the river. Time for the squad to skin out, and skin out they did!

Aftermath 

So begins our Special Operations Group X (SOG X) campaign. Future posts will show more about this hard hitting group of operators and their wins and losses fighting the hidden war. 

We enjoy the Airborne missions. Behind enemy lines cards are greatness and can really add excitement to a mission. As do the landing zone cards.

This was our first encounter with North Korean forces. They were tougher than the Middle East and African forces. We are going to need to up gun our weapons. We could really use a ranged weapon with spray!

Great game. Good fun.

We wonder what outbreak was behind this mission? Stay tuned.....

The Devil Went Down to Georgia

Grimsaw and Maibala were not happy to be ordered back into the jungle. They had been the only ones to return alive from the last foray. Nerves were frayed.
Their confidence was bolstered somewhat by having veteran jungle fighter Sala assigned to the mission.

Shadows and fog engulfed the team from the outset. Sala slid his blade from its sheath as the fog closed in. It comforted him. Grimsaw received a hailstorm of rifle fire as he emerged from the fog.

The team closed ranks and forced the enemy to hunker down.

Grimsaw’s frayed nerves were making him careless. As he advanced, he triggered a boobytrap. As enemy forces gathered ahead, Maibala played rearguard.

Grimsaw, a tad crazed, rushed recklessly ahead of the team. He wanted this objective Bad.

Sala remained behind to deal with threats lurking in the fog. A fog which seemed to trail the squad while growing denser. The others rushed to aid Grimsaw.

Grimsaw’s crazed rush, left the team stretched out along the path. Kute paid the price.

Sala fell out of contact. However, his efforts in the fog kept forces from building up on the objective. Grimsaw reached their goal, but the fog had allowed a major build up to occur (RP hostiles + a 5 points).
His grenades would even the score.

Time was running out. Maibala heard Sala cry out and headed back to help. He had little to aid Grimsaw.
Grimsaw was making a last stand. He had to clear the area or all would be lost.

The fat lady sang. Time had run out as the fog engulfed the four soldiers. 

Aftermath 
Thus ends our three R’Lyeh missions. Zero wins. The module has great new twists, which required us to rethink our tactics and loadouts. Obviously we needed more plays to get it right.

This final mission was extra bloody, and fun. We prefer challenging missions and have often found the more enjoyable sessions to be those that result in casualties and even failure. Here the result is if the time expires, the squad is never heard from again.

The soldiers in this module are all fun to mix into the missions.

The Mission Team